


Domesticity

by Gryff



Category: Dracula - Bram Stoker
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-06-19 06:52:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15504759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gryff/pseuds/Gryff
Summary: I've been neglecting my writing lately for worldbuilding. I need to practice. Hence this little series of drabbles.This one was a dialogue practice. I simultaneously think it should be longer and that it's as long as it needs to be. Perhaps I'll just supplement it with another chapter.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been neglecting my writing lately for worldbuilding. I need to practice. Hence this little series of drabbles. 
> 
> This one was a dialogue practice. I simultaneously think it should be longer and that it's as long as it needs to be. Perhaps I'll just supplement it with another chapter.

“You’re being greedy,” Ilona says. She’s resting on his chest, alternating with playing with his hair and beard. He drags himself into clarity.

“What?” He shifts his body upright. She often caught him with questions and requests when he was vulnerable like this: spent and contented, tired.

She propped herself on one arm. She draws circles in his flesh before she looks up at him, one eyebrow raised. “Don’t you think the three of us are enough?” She smiles.

“Ilona, what are you getting at?” His brow is furrowed. She laughs. He was usually so acute and cunning, with a cold logical brain that often frightened her with how it could take her apart piece by piece within moments, except now, after she was done with him. His puzzled expression deepens as she laughs. She pulls her body upwards and squeezes his cheeks.

“Jonathan,” She says. She watches the realization come into his foggy eyes. He’s waking up, “I see the way he looks at you.” He pulls her arms down.

“You think I’m doing that on purpose?” He snarls. He pulls himself out of bed, leaving her sprawled on the sheets.

“You’re not dissuading him,” she says. She rolls onto her belly, props her head on her arms, and lets her legs kick in the air behind her as she watches him get dressed.

“It isn’t going to be like that,” Vlad says. The cold is seeping back into his voice again.

“Is it?” she croons. “You were acting very much the same when you met Syeira.” She cocks her head. “Though it would be interesting to have another man around, hm? You wouldn’t have to do all of the work.” He turns around, the movement sharp and sudden. She wiggles her eyebrows at him, smug as a cat as she smirks up at him.

“Ilona,” he snarls.

“Vlad,” she purrs back.

“If my goal was to find a man to court then I wouldn’t be going across Europe,” the words come level from between his red lips, not quite controlled anger, but not feigned annoyance either. She was lucky he wasn’t taking much offense to her words. “My plans come first. I do not have time for such distractions. I do not need anyone else.”

She pouts. “You’re lying to me,” she said.

He leans down and kisses her. “You three are all I want and all I need,” he says against her lips.

“You’re lying to me,” she smiles, softer this time. They kiss again.


	2. Chapter 2

“Syeira?” Vlad called into the laboratory. He walked in, sliding the door closed behind him. The room was dark. The flames of the candles sputtered in the melted wax pools. Slivers of moonlight flitted through the clouds into the room. “Syeira?” He said again. Only his reverberating voice answered him.

He crossed the room, passing by bubbling cauldrons and fuming flasks bellowing odd colored smoke and noxious fumes, shelves full of jars and desiccated specimens. As well read as he was, he failed to understand the bulk of her alchemic research.

At the end of Syeira’s laboratory was a study, tucked in an alcove. The wall was covered in diagrams, pictures, and notes, with a desk. Vlad smiled at the bush of copper-red hair resting on the desk. “There you are,” he said as he approached her. He pushed aside her hair. She was sleeping on a pile of papers decorating with her handwriting. Her right hand resting on the page. Her pen had rolled out of her grasp and laid against her cheek, smudging it with ink. He grabbed a shred of cloth to mop up the black ink dripping down her cheek to the neck of her dress.

“Syeira, love,” He shook her shoulder. Syeira groaned in protest. She shifted her head away from his hands, tucking it underneath her arms. “Hey.” He shook her again. “Wake up.”

“What?” She slurred. She blinked and looked around before she settled on him. “Vlad?”

“Come to bed, love,” he began to wrap one arm around her torso, the other dipping to grasp behind her knees, ready to carry her bridal style back to their room.

“No,” she pushed him away. “I’m not finished.”

Vlad frowned. She could no longer grow bags under her eyes, but he could see the exhaustion on her face. “When was the last time you slept?” He ran his fingers through her hair.

“A couple of days, maybe?” She shrugged and pushed his hand away. She gestured to the pages on the desk. “I need to finish writing this.”

He stared at her, watching her hand begin to scribble furiously across the piece of parchment on the desk. “You’ll come to bed when you’re finished.”  

“Yes,” she said, waving him away.

“You will,” he licked at his thumb and smeared the ink from her cheek. She pouted and looked up at him like an impudent child. “Your body needs blood _and_ rest.”

“Mm,” she didn’t look up. “I’ll come in a few minutes. Don’t wait for me.”

He hovered over her for a while, watching her faze into another realm as she sunk deeper into her work. He contemplated using his powers on her to urge her back to their room to rest, his will grazing against her mind. The desire passed as he thought more of it. He sighed, squeezed her shoulder, and walked off to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> College has consumed me I just mananged to sit and write for the first time in forever


	3. Chapter 3

Vlad was not sure what to do when Jordis placed a wolf pup in his hands. He stared at the young creature in his hands. It had not yet opened its eyes and squirmed in his awkward embrace, relying on its nose to scout out its now distant mother. 

“They were born a few days ago,” Jordis said. She sat back by the hollow opening in the ground. A wolf, reddish brown with wide yellow eyes, laid at her side, its head resting on her lap. That was the mother, the alpha female Jordis had named Svala. Jordis stroked the fur between her ears in an absent-minded manner. Svala groaned in content, pushing her head against Jordis’ hand. “There’s five more in the den.” 

He looked down at the whimpering pup. It was absolutely tiny. It could easily fit in his hand, but Vlad kept the pup close to his body. It squirmed, its head moving from side to side. The corner of his lip quirked upwards. “Six must be a lot,” he said. A wet nose pressed against his cheek. Vlad looked up at the culprit. A gray and black wolf sniffed him. “Hello.” He tucks the pup in one arm and used the other to pet the wolf. Its tail began to wag and it licked at his fingers. “Who’s this?” He asks his wife. 

“That’s Thijmen. Six is normal. Svala’s first litter had twelve. That’s why the pack got so big so quick.” Jordis moves her hand from Svala’s head to pet another wolf who had come up at her side. The pack had jostled for her attention ever since they arrived. The initial excitement – the yips and whines, the furious wagging of tails, the attempts to pounce on Jordis and lick at her mouth – had subsided somewhat, but the power play remained. The larger, more violent fights that broke out as the wolves tried to greet Jordis pushed those younger and weaker wolves to seek Vlad instead. While he was undoubtedly Jordis’s mate, being covered in her scent, they had been suspicious of him. But for some, like Thijmen, the desire for attention won out. 

Another wolf, copper furred, sniffed his hand. “All twelve survived?” Vlad asked. He began to pet the newcomer. Thijmen growled at the copper wolf. “Hey,” Vlad warned. He switched his hand back to pet Thijmen under the chin. 

“No. Nine did. But she hasn’t had a litter that size since.” Jordis shrugged. “That’s good. She could have gotten hurt.”  
The pup in Vlad’s arm squeaked. Svala lifted herself from Jordis’ side and walked towards Vlad. She sniffed the pup. Its The den erupted in noise. Vlad chuckled. 

“Tell me their names,” he said. 

Jordis snorts. “All of them?” 

“I’ll try to remember them,” he smirked. He switched back to pet the copper wolf despite Thijmen’s protests. “You’ll have to keep reminding me if I forget.”

Jordis points to the copper furred wolf. “Adalgisa,” She points to the wolves who were stalking behind Vlad, waiting for the opportunity to get near him. “Gunthilde, Dieter, Helmut, Hiltrud, Ingolf.”  
He smiles to group of smaller wolves and extends a hand. They jumped at the chance to sniff and lick his hand. One particularly bold one (Dieter?) pushed its head right into Vlad’s hand. He chuckled. “They like being pet.”

“Greetings are important to them,” she said. “All a part of the hierarchy.”

Yet another wolf approached him. But the new arrival was not ignored or disputed. The wolves who had gathered around him scattered. The newcomer was not large or distinctive in any of its physical traits, but Vlad knew authority when he saw it. This was Regenmaer, the alpha male. It was the first name Vlad had learned, long before he ventured down to meet the pack. He was Jordis’ ‘firstborn’; the wolf pup Jordis had found and raised a few years after they had married. 

Regenmaer sniffed at Vlad. He raised his gaze to Vlad. On the ground, Vlad was eyelevel with Regenmaer. He could sense the suspicion burning in the yellow eyes fixed on him. Vlad mirrored it with his own defiant glare. 

“Don’t stare back,” Jordis snapped. Vlad looked at her. She was tense. Her attention shifted between her husband and her wolf. “Keep on me.”  
Jordis had told him about how wolf packs work before they arrived. Wolves lived in familial groups, with a mated pair as the leaders and their children as subordinates. Sometimes unrelated wolves joined but they were a minority. Jordis had raised Regenmaer and so had this strange, but respected, ‘grandmotherly’ rank among the pack, but Vlad had no such position. He was new, an outsider despite being mated to Jordis. He had to be approved. 

Vlad felt the wolf sniffing the back of his neck. He did not move, staring at Jordis the whole time. She looked between the two of them, ready to. Regenmaer rested his head on top of Vlad’s, a low growl emanating from his throat. The wolf raised his body up, resting his weight. 

“Don’t move,” Jordis said. 

Vlad shifted. The wolf was putting all his weight on Vlad’s back. He gritted his teeth. “What is he – ” 

“Don’t move!”

Seconds passed but dragged for an eternity. Regenmaer lost interest and walked away. The wolf passed Jordis, earning a gentle pet before he settled near the den’s entrance. His eyes were still burning on Vlad. The other wolves had long since slunk from the scene now that their alpha male had arrived. 

“I think that’s enough for today,” Jordis said. She looked at Regenmaer and frowned. “He doesn’t like you this close.” She pushed the wolves away from her and beckoned to him. “Give it here.”

He handed the pup to Jordis. It had fallen asleep some time ago, finding no milk in Vlad’s arms. Jordis placed the pup in the den with a gentleness that she had rarely showed to him. “Come on.” She grabbed his arm and wrenched him upwards, pulling him away from the den and towards their horses out in the field.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wolf behavior is so misunderstood and warped by public perception. The guy who popularized the alpha/beta/omega concept later discounted that paper (i think it was a book actually?) because the pack(s) he studied were made up of unrelated pack members, which is not what happens in the wild. There is no 'alpha male/female' who becomes the leader based on dominance and aggression. It's just parents. A pack is a family unit. The kids that survive to adulthood (1 - 3 is the general age range) can leave and form their own packs or they can stay a bit longer and further help their parents out with raising their younger siblings.
> 
> That's my ethology lesson for today! Anyway, comments, questions, and critiques are always welcome!


End file.
